iPad mini first impressions

So my white wifi mini just arrived, I haven't even had a chance to turn it on, but I thought it would be a good time for a first impressions thread.

• I still can't get over how small it is, the size is just great and so small• How it feels in the hand is really good, it's not overly weighty at all but is extremely solid feeling and nice to hold.

• The smart cover does not align as well as on the big iPad, the first couple of tries it connected hallway off the top or bottom of the mini. Your aim has to be more exact to get it to connect. Once connected it feels like a nice solid connection• The Apple logo on the back seems a bit out of proportion I think. It appears to be the same size as on the regular iPad, I think a bit smaller would look a bit more natural. - very minor quibble.

Will post more impressions and hopefully some pics soon.

Edit: Pics! and more impressions

• Size doesn't seem to be an issue at all so far, no strange or hard to hit tap targets, and I think this might be my favorite iOS screen keyboard so far as far as size goes. iPhone is a little small at times, and the iPad always felt a little too big, now it feels really comfortable.• Volume buttons are much nicer feeling the the thin, plastic one on the iPad• Already it feels a bit weird to go back to the big iPad, it almost feels like a whole different class of device despite running the exact same apps in the same way. I'm really glad i got the mini, since I got an 11" Air my usage of the iPad has decreased since the size and weight was so similar I would usually go with the Air.

• Using an app like Paper on the mini feels really great - i really wish Paper supported portrait orientation though.

Edit 2:

• Edge detection works well, your thumb can be pretty far in on the side and and it just ignores it so you can use your other hand as if your thumb wasn't touching the screen at all.

• I still can't get over how small it is, the size is just great and so small• How it feels in the hand is really good, it's not overly weighty at all but is extremely solid feeling and nice to hold.

That sounds like exactly what I'd want. I mostly use my iPad 2 for reading books I by from the book store, or reading news articles while I lie in bed. Only problem is the weight and size is uncomfortable for bed reading, especially if I get tired and the iPad keeps falling forward on my face (I lie sideways, because laying on my back and holding the iPad over my head is tiring).The only problem I see is the pixel density. I already have problems with the text at certain size on the iPad 2. I have to enlarge the font, and that means more swipes to turn pages, especially like most nerds, we can read fast. At smaller fonts I can the color banding and pixelation gets tiring and distracting on the eyes. How's the reading of fonts on the iPad mini? Especially if you're lying in bed and have the device closer to your face then at half arms length if you were sitting up? Maybe a foot, a foot and a half away? I haven't had a chance to test the retina displays on the iPad 3, so I have no idea if the retina displays would be better on the eyes, or just as bothersome with small fonts too.

• I still can't get over how small it is, the size is just great and so small• How it feels in the hand is really good, it's not overly weighty at all but is extremely solid feeling and nice to hold.

That sounds like exactly what I'd want. I mostly use my iPad 2 for reading books I by from the book store, or reading news articles while I lie in bed. Only problem is the weight and size is uncomfortable for bed reading, especially if I get tired and the iPad keeps falling forward on my face (I lie sideways, because laying on my back and holding the iPad over my head is tiring).The only problem I see is the pixel density. I already have problems with the text at certain size on the iPad 2. I have to enlarge the font, and that means more swipes to turn pages, especially like most nerds, we can read fast. At smaller fonts I can the color banding and pixelation gets tiring and distracting on the eyes. How's the reading of fonts on the iPad mini? Especially if you're lying in bed and have the device closer to your face then at half arms length if you were sitting up? Maybe a foot, a foot and a half away? I haven't had a chance to test the retina displays on the iPad 3, so I have no idea if the retina displays would be better on the eyes, or just as bothersome with small fonts too.

I'm syncing and updating stuff now, i'll try and load up some books and see how it feels once thats all done. So far I think the slightly higher density of the mini vs. the iPad 2 is a bit of an improvement. I'll try and compare it with my friends iPad 3 later today and see how it does head to head and get back to you.

I also have the problem of the iPad 2 attempting to smack me in the face when I use it on the bed. Luckily the mini seems better here. I changed positions on the bed and tried to disturb it and so far it didn't tip or fall over, even poking at the screen it took a bit to make it fall over. The smart cover is uh, sprongy... if thats a word. When you tap the mini it jiggles around a bit but the base remains stable and pretty balanced.

If you're the kind of person who likes to put the iPad on their chest/stomach though the mini is even less stable than the big iPad (but tends to fall backwards instead of forward.

It does seem like the consensus is "it's an awesome device, but if only it had a Retina display." I can understand though that they simply can't include it and hit the price they want yet. It just seems weird, once you've used an iPhone 4 or anything newer, to buy a new device that doesn't have one.

It looks a little odd to me how the sections on the Mini's smart cover aren't balanced – it's the same cover as the regular iPad, just cut shorter. I guess they did that so that it would prop it up at the same angles, so I suppose it makes sense...just looks a little weird.

OK guys, I think he got the message. (Resizing would be appreciated, kthxbye)

Aside from the pics, thanks for the thoughts. I'm contemplating replacing my 1st gen iPad with a mini.. it is mostly for my daughter's use, but she prefers my iPhone. I asked her about it last night, and she told me it was because the iPad was "so big and harder to hold". I asked if she would like me to get one that was smaller, and she said "yes, but keep the big one for you". LOL.

:D can you please post hi-def pics of the screen, it could be nice to see how pixelated -or not- it looks

You can't do that. You get some serious banding when you try to take a photo of an LCD screen. I tried it myself a few weeks ago for something totally unrelated, and I kept getting color banding in co-centric circles across the screen. I haven't figured out technically why that happens, but it is a curious effect of taking a photo of a screen. And yes, I did try different shutter speeds.

:D can you please post hi-def pics of the screen, it could be nice to see how pixelated -or not- it looks

You can't do that. You get some serious banding when you try to take a photo of an LCD screen. I tried it myself a few weeks ago for something totally unrelated, and I kept getting color banding in co-centric circles across the screen. I haven't figured out technically why that happens, but it is a curious effect of taking a photo of a screen. And yes, I did try different shutter speeds.

The only problem I see is the pixel density. I already have problems with the text at certain size on the iPad 2. I have to enlarge the font, and that means more swipes to turn pages, especially like most nerds, we can read fast. At smaller fonts I can the color banding and pixelation gets tiring and distracting on the eyes. How's the reading of fonts on the iPad mini? Especially if you're lying in bed and have the device closer to your face then at half arms length if you were sitting up? Maybe a foot, a foot and a half away? I haven't had a chance to test the retina displays on the iPad 3, so I have no idea if the retina displays would be better on the eyes, or just as bothersome with small fonts too.

OK, I've had a chance to use the mini a bit more now, some one the train, laying in bed and just lounging about.

I have iBooks set on the default font size and that seems to be the most comfortable and natural setting for me. Using it at about a foot and a half away regular size text is easy to read but small text requires a *bit* more focus to be completely comfortable. Lying in bed and using it 8-12 inches away was better and very comfortable. Overall text is just a slightly bit clearer and sharper, but the form factor has had a huge impact. The mini feels like taking a small paperback book or japanese manga with you, while the iPad feels like bringing a large magazine or hardcover book to bed.

Retina is superior by a wide margin still and based on how small text renders in iBooks on the iPhone 5 i'd say retina will be much better on the eyes.

I think we'll have reading perfection in a year or so when we get a retina iPad mini. Really looking forward to that!

Oh by the way, have you tried the new scrolling "theme" in the new iBooks? That might be less annoying than page flipping when you're reading quickly. Personally I've switched to scrolling on the iPhone, but prefer the page flipping on the iPad still.

:D can you please post hi-def pics of the screen, it could be nice to see how pixelated -or not- it looks

You can't do that. You get some serious banding when you try to take a photo of an LCD screen. I tried it myself a few weeks ago for something totally unrelated, and I kept getting color banding in co-centric circles across the screen. I haven't figured out technically why that happens, but it is a curious effect of taking a photo of a screen. And yes, I did try different shutter speeds.

The moire effect?

Exactly.

The best way to get rid of it when taking a picture of an LCD screen (short of moving close enough in that each pixel on the screen takes up more than one pixel on the camera) is to slightly defocus the image. Doesn't really help when you're trying to look at pixelation, though (not that you can get a good idea of how pixelated something will look from an image with a heavy moire pattern, either).

well, yesbut on the original photos there was no problem to distinctly see the pixels and font characters, giving an idea of the real thing.I guess the smaller the pixels goes, at some point, the easier it goes to take good pics in such cases, without artefactsi didn't mean macro pics

:D can you please post hi-def pics of the screen, it could be nice to see how pixelated -or not- it looks

You can't do that. You get some serious banding when you try to take a photo of an LCD screen. I tried it myself a few weeks ago for something totally unrelated, and I kept getting color banding in co-centric circles across the screen. I haven't figured out technically why that happens, but it is a curious effect of taking a photo of a screen. And yes, I did try different shutter speeds.

The moire effect?

Ah. Interesting. I didn't know it was called that. I googled and skimmed through the wiki article. Will have to read up more on it later. Cheers.

OK, I've had a chance to use the mini a bit more now, some one the train, laying in bed and just lounging about.

I have iBooks set on the default font size and that seems to be the most comfortable and natural setting for me. Using it at about a foot and a half away regular size text is easy to read but small text requires a *bit* more focus to be completely comfortable. Lying in bed and using it 8-12 inches away was better and very comfortable. Overall text is just a slightly bit clearer and sharper, but the form factor has had a huge impact. The mini feels like taking a small paperback book or japanese manga with you, while the iPad feels like bringing a large magazine or hardcover book to bed.

Retina is superior by a wide margin still and based on how small text renders in iBooks on the iPhone 5 i'd say retina will be much better on the eyes.

I think we'll have reading perfection in a year or so when we get a retina iPad mini. Really looking forward to that!

Oh by the way, have you tried the new scrolling "theme" in the new iBooks? That might be less annoying than page flipping when you're reading quickly. Personally I've switched to scrolling on the iPhone, but prefer the page flipping on the iPad still.

Looks like I'll have to wait for the retina mini then. I haven't tried the scrolling in the iBooks app. Will have to check on that. Cheers for the feedback. Much appreciated.

Sorry about the off-topic, but people who keep screaming about oversize images: what are you using?

Safari on all OSen/iOSen resizes automagically on this forum.

Are other browsers broken?

The width was around 2000+, and this being portrait, the height was 3000+, a few images and you're scrolling down quite a bit. It's not the resizing, it's the amount of scrolling. That is for the big screen. And also, size does matter (that's what she said) for data transfer. It's not a huge deal with fast internet connections, but decoding and loading a large series of images (this is more obvious in the photography thread then in threads with a few photo) can be kinda painful. Especially, as in the case of the photography thread, if you're reading the latest post and while you scroll down, images are still loading, and the page height changes making it jump around as you scroll down. The option is off course to wait for the page to load. Anyway, that's my take on it. I didn't immediately say anything in my original post because the photography thread in the Audio Visual forum has seriously amped my tolerance for loading images in a single thread. This thread is nothing. Check out any of the pages in the photography thread: you'll thank whatever deity you believe in that here we have a formal rule of image width (that's what she said - hush you!).

Got two for the kids. Awesome devices, so much better than iPods which kids lose all the time.

Kids don't care about "retina displays" and with millions of these that will be sold (and iPad 2s already sold) I think it is almost guaranteed that game developers will develop most games with these devices in mind so I think for my purposes these are very future proof.

Also obviously had to order two Otterbox cases, now that's a ripoff but they are a must when you give a tablet to a kid...

Got to check this out in the store today. Saw the black version. People had already scratched it, heh.

I liked the size--it felt only a bit heavier than an iPhone 4S, to me, although I might just be exaggerating. It was incredibly light.

That said, it has absolutely nothing in it that I would prefer over my iPad 3 besides the lightning port. The screen looked terrible to me because I'm so used to my Retina displays now, and there's no way I'd use an iPad without one now. No way I'd buy the Mini this generation.

Got two for the kids. Awesome devices, so much better than iPods which kids lose all the time.

Kids don't care about "retina displays" and with millions of these that will be sold (and iPad 2s already sold) I think it is almost guaranteed that game developers will develop most games with these devices in mind so I think for my purposes these are very future proof.

Also obviously had to order two Otterbox cases, now that's a ripoff but they are a must when you give a tablet to a kid...

Yea, this is my use case, too, so lack of Retina isn't a biggie. Still think I'll wait, though to really see it in person. Or rather my kids to see it in ..uh...their person

Goodness I'm in love with the iPad Mini. Had an iPad 2, loved the software didn't like the size. Had a Nexus 7, liked the size mostly (wasn't good for reading graphic novels or even web pages), disliked the software, *really* didn't like the build quality.

iPad Mini nails it for me. I do wish it was slightly cheaper. I have a Moleskin medium sized notebook that is my favourite size. The iPad Mini is almost identical to that Moleskin.

I picked up a 64GB/Black on Saturday. As a first time iPad owner, I'm stoked. I had been fighting with my girlfriend over using her iPad 2, so now thats taken care of.

Love the size - I was definitely worried about text size with my bad eyes. Spent some time with it in the store and decided it would work, and I'm glad I did.

Love the weight - Thats the only complaint I had about the iPad 2, it was too heavy for the way I used it.

Screen - I dont find myself zooming in to read stuff as often as I though I would. It does the job well in my opinion. Sure, retina display would be awesome but I dont find myself missing it for now. Of course, my only exposure to that is my iPhone 4S.

I'm loving the iPad Mini, the smart cover however not so much. For some reason they don't put magnets on the far edge, so when you wrap it around the back it just flaps. This was fine with the bigger iPads since the smart cover was in 4 sections, you could wrap it back onto itself. The Mini smart cover however is awkwardly divided into 3 sections, so you can't wrap it decently. It also moves around when wrapped to the back, feels sloppy. Love the minimalism, dislike the implementation. Returning the smart cover for sure.